After a year-long deployment in the Middle East, 120 North Carolina National Guard Soldiers have touched down state side and were met with a hero’s welcome.
On July 25, men and women from the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) landed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, and donning masks, they were greeted by senior National Guard members as they disembarked the aircraft.
Elbow bumps and words of congratulation were exchanged.
The year-long mission was Old Hickory’s third deployment since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York.
North Carolina Army National Guard (NCARNG) Brig. Gen. Allen Boyette called the soldiers’ return a “special day,” adding, “It was a long road with train-up and mission.”
Boyette acknowledged the second big event of the day: besides their safe return, the 120 soldiers were honored with a World War Two Presidential Unit Citation at the division’s headquarters in Clinton, North Carolina. The citation was awarded in recognition of the division’s bravery and heroism at the Battle of Mortain in northwestern France over 76 years ago.
The welcoming home was an encouraging sight for military families across the nation.
A number of overseas troops did make it home before the Stop Movement order went into effect, however.
“Leadership adjusted the timeline of the exercise based on an assessment that the unit had achieved its initial training objectives,” U.S. Army Pacific spokesman Col. Derrick W. Cheng explained, “and with obvious consideration to the evolving environment that COVID-19 presented.”
He added, “With the COVID situation, different countries are adjusting their [military-to-military] activities to include those exercises ... We’re adjusting along with everybody else—the regional militaries–on what the rest of the year is going to look like.”
